FWIW, last week was not the first time I heard Singapore mentioned,
although I don't remember the context in which it had previously been
mentioned. We need to have both more transparency about which locations
are being considered, and also a process for registering feedback on these
locations. E.g., feedback on the IETF mailing list probably isn't
sufficient, because it's hard to keep track of the entirety of that mailing
list even if you subscribe to it, so a comment there could very easily get
lost.
On Mon, Apr 11, 2016 at 10:07 AM, Yoav Nir
<ynir(_dot_)ietf(_at_)gmail(_dot_)com> wrote:
+1
On 11 Apr 2016, at 12:34 PM, Hutton, Andrew
<andrew(_dot_)hutton(_at_)unify(_dot_)com>
wrote:
I agree 100% with Andrew's view.
Regards
Andy
On 11 Apr 2016, at 09:05, Andrew Allen <aallen(_at_)blackberry(_dot_)com>
wrote:
This is what I mean by slippery slope - once we go down this path it
never ends - in a global community of well over 1000 active people at least
one person is likely to have a problem with some aspect of most of the
countries governments, policies, cultures or actions, etc.
We could be left with the only possible venue being a cruise ship
sailing in international waters - but then someone will probably object
because the ship is registered in Panama or Liberia!
The focus should be on choosing a location for the meeting that is open
for all to attend and where it is reasonably safe to attend and meets the
needs of a meeting for a large number of people and represents the regional
balance of the membership.
The mission of the IETF is to make the Internet work better by
producing high quality, relevant technical documents that influence the way
people design, use, and manage the Internet.
The IETF is not an organization that's mission is to be an advocate for
global social, environmental or political change. The selection of a
meeting location should be for the purposes of advancing the IETF's
mission. I think some of the concerns raised about Singapore need to be
addressed in terms of the practical impact and risk to the attendance of
some in the IETF community but we shouldn’t start down the road of choosing
or not choosing meeting locations based on an evaluation of a countries
laws, culture and policies and whether those are acceptable to all or most
of the community.
Debates over whether a location is politically or morally acceptable
will only distract from the mission of the IETF and likely divide the
community rather than help in making progress towards forming consensus on
the future development of the internet.
Andrew
-----Original Message-----
From: ietf [mailto:ietf-bounces(_at_)ietf(_dot_)org] On Behalf Of Vinayak
Hegde
Sent: Sunday, April 10, 2016 10:24 PM
To: chopps(_at_)chopps(_dot_)org
Cc: IETF discussion list <ietf(_at_)ietf(_dot_)org>
Subject: Re: Concerns about Singapore
On Mon, Apr 11, 2016 at 6:46 AM, <chopps(_at_)chopps(_dot_)org> wrote:
It's certainly relevant to me, b/c I don't personally think that IETF
meetings should be held in oppressive and censoring countries. I don't
know how to articulate this well -- others are better at it -- but I
certainly would like to skip any meetings that I feel violate IETFs
value of openness so that I can at least vote with my feet and my
dollars.
Well how does this work with Internet's (and IETF's) mission of
inclusiveness. Applying the same scale of "oppressiveness", I am sure large
parts of the world think the same about the US/UK which has waged wars in
Iraq, Afghanistan, Vietnam, Syria, Argentina (our latest venue) and
elsewhere.
The IETF doesn't seem to have a problem having meetings in these
countries. I hope the majority of participants on this list realise that
they are viewing the world through a western prism.
The notion of punishing the general populace for the mistakes of their
elected and unelected govt. seems wrong to me. Many times, the general
populace of the country is fighting their govt. through the Internet. eg.
Turkey.
-- Vinayak